Fast roads - Las Vegas

[scoTTy32]

I'm heading out to Vegas in November and considering renting a Dodge Challenger from the Hert "Adrenaline Collection" - Anyone know of any decent routes to strech it's legs without falling foul of the local Police?

Also, having seen this place on TGUSA - How bad for a car would hooning around here be? "El Mirage" http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/barstow/mirage.html

[chazola]

Dunno if you'd want to go this far out, but when I visited Vegas a few years ago I wanted to also check out Rachel, NV, near Area 51 as I've always been into the UFO stuff, highway 93/375 leads there and is arrow-straight for many miles with hardly anyone on it, apart from the odd highway patrol from bumblef*ck you'd probably be able to cane it happily. The vistas are massive, the road was in good nick, it was about 100 miles to Rachel and you were really in the middle of nowhere, which I loved. I was only in a boring Toyota hire car but it was still a great drive.

[Chris944]

Drive up to Zion Canyon. There is a great canyon ascent on the way there.

[Exige S]

Long way, but the descent into Palm Desert is awesome. Bear in mind the highway patrol will shoot/bum/deport you if you attempt to have fun.

[mad4amanda]

definately red rock and further out its wonderful!

[OdramaSwimLaden]

I'm not sure where it is, but it is a private road to one of the helicopter tour places in Vegas (Blue helicopters...!) It's a good 30-50 miles and there are no cops. Vague I know, good luck......

[davepoth]

Make sure the tank is full, and run for the Arizona state line. Can't possibly go wrong...

[dcb]

Exige S said:

Bear in mind the highway patrol will shoot/bum/deport you if you attempt to have fun.

Agreed.

The coppers there have guns and know how to use them and *will* point
them at your head if they think they need to.

Of course, their idea of fast is a lot different to most European's idea of fast.

Let's not forget driving interactions with the locals, too.

If you are going to be getting a bit keen, try to do it when
there is no one else around.

Mrs Mabel Doe, in her SUV, really won't be expecting you to be doing
120 mph and while she's driving, she's usually got three or four more
important things she's doing at the same time, like her hair, nails,
cellphone and lipstick, so don't expect her to take too much notice of
what's going on outside the SUV.

Death Valley's quite good, Grand Canyon nice to look at
but there's an awful lot of not much in the desert areas of SW USA.
A 100 mile drive to go and have a look at something is common.

[jatinder]

Valley of fire, lake mead is good too, had a great BLT there!

Enjoy,

[dcb]

dcb said:

Of course, their idea of fast is a lot different to most European's idea of fast.

One thing I forgot to mention is how alarmingly slow
most, not all, US cars are. I suspect you may struggle to rent
a fast car.

Certainly the 3.8 litre Ford I rented once struggled
to get to 110 mph: that's Nissan Micra sort of speed in Europe.
That Ford would have been beaten hollow by a Euro spec
BMW 320.

I can only assume US cars are built for longevity and
durability, not outright top speed.

[Stu R]

If you struggle to rent a fast car in Las Vegas, you're probably in San Francisco and really hard of thinking.

Red Rock & the Valley Of Fire. Plenty of fun to be had.

[Deva Link]

dcb said:

Certainly the 3.8 litre Ford I rented once struggled
to get to 110 mph:

Did you unclip the stop from under the gas pedal?

Something like a Vauxhall Viva might be more fun - you could just drive it flat out.

[Ingenere]

If you are looking to go flat out, from Vegas take 93N towards Tonapah and Reno. There are places that are dead straight for miles with no side roads. I have managed the double ton in my SL55 on this road.

North of Tonapah, you can turn left and head towards Yosemite. The roads get twisty and challenging. The best part of all of these roads is you just won't have much traffic.

Edited by Ingenere on Friday 9th December 05:46